James Cowan is a distinguished poet and novelist. His bestselling titles include A Mapmaker’s Dream and A Toubadour’s Testament.

Hardcover: 320 pages

Publisher: Watkins Publishing (19 September 2017)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1786780291

ISBN-13: 978-1786780294

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Review:

“There goes a river dragging a mighty ocean behind it. “

This is a mighty amazing book, part biography and part odes on Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi’s thoughts, beliefs, his relationship with God and his friendship with the spiritual vagabond, Shams of Tabriz. The bond between them is fully exhausted, beautifully analysed from all the possible angles by the author. His attempt at solving the mystery of the relationship of Rumi with the wanderer who had the utmost effect on Rumi’s life is commendable. The viewpoint and thinking process of each of them is explained in a engaging format.

It’s a bit difficult to get into the context of the book if you are not yet familiar with who Rumi is. But once you keep reading, it builds up the interest, the mystery and you keep getting impressed. The addition of Odes is a wonderful feature. The translations are beautiful and they show the compelling relationship of Rumi with his God and his Wild One.

If you keep reading  you peel out layers and layers of Rumi and that’s wonderful in itself. All in all a good book.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy of this book from Watkins Publishing via NetGalley but all views are only my own. 

 

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